


And ain't this position familiar, darling

by Pandir



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A bit of fluff with a heap of issues, M/M, Scars, old Stans being rusty when it comes to affection and talking things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 00:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14863278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandir/pseuds/Pandir
Summary: Reconnecting after all this time isn’t easy. Ford is determined to try - in his own way.(I just really wanted to write a fic about Ford tracing Stan's scars, so this is what this is)





	And ain't this position familiar, darling

It shouldn’t be that strange to undress in close proximity. And actually it isn’t - not for Stan at least. There’s not much room on a small ship, and they are used to sharing a room, so there’s nothing new about this. Nothing they haven’t seen yet, nothing they gotta hide.

Except that that isn’t quite true.

Ford is the one who hurries to get his pajama shirt on, to cover that silly tattoo of his, as if Stan would start humming the song at the mere sight of it.

Ford turns his back to him, too, until he’s buttoned it all up, but Stan does not pry. They don’t ask questions like that - it makes things easier.

At least that’s what Stan thought, until he pulls of his shirt and undershirt to throw them over the ladder of the bed and catches Ford looking at him - or rather, at his shoulder, just before the curve of his neck muscles.

“Where did you get that?”, Ford asks.

“Oh, that old thing?” Stan shrugs. “’S nothing. Fell off a ladder, and onto the - uh - stairs. Fell down those, too.”

Not convinced by Stan’s transparent lie and apparently entirely oblivious to his obvious attempt to shrug it off, Ford takes a step towards where Stan is sitting on the lower bunk bed, examining his shoulder more closely.

“And that left you with a scar like  _this_?”, he asks with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, well, I crashed into a- uh-”, Stan starts, but it’s a weak attempt.

“A knife?”, Ford suggests, and before Stan can deny it, Ford’s fingers are tracing the long, thin stripe of padded scar tissue over Stan’s shoulder and he says, decisively, “I’m fairly certain that this is the result of a puncture wound.”

Stan makes a non-committal noise and shrugs. “So, what is this, Poindexter - you’re just going to inspect me like one of your weird freaky magical critters?”

“I’m trying to catch up, Stanley”, Ford insists, and there’s an earnestness to his words that Stan finds it hard to argue with. “And if you won’t be honest with me, at least let me see for myself.”

He does not say ‘I used to know you inside and out’, but Stan thinks it, anyway.

Now they have both their good share of things better left unsaid. In some ways, they might as well be strangers, and it’s weird, not just because it used to be different, but because they are still, despite it all, so utterly familiar with each other.

This is familiar, too - sitting together on the lower bunk bed too small for them both, Stan in his boxers and Ford in his usual dork pajamas.

But it’s also definitely, decidedly strange, with Ford sitting in front of him, closely scrutinizing his bare torso like that, his fingers trailing over the skin, searching.

Stan sucks the air through his teeth when Ford’s fingers follow the arc of his ribs, prodding them when he finds a kink in their curve.

“Careful there, Sixer.”

Ford keeps pressing his fingers right on the spot, stroking back and forth, examining his findings.

“Several broken ribs, I presume? And probably not treated with the proper medical procedures.”

Stan doesn’t care to answer that, but Ford’s hand is warm on his ribs, and even the way he digs his fingers into the flesh to feel the bones beneath is not half bad. With a small sigh, Stan leans his head back against the wall. Might as well let him have this. After all, the old nerd loves analyzing things and being right.

And Ford does appear to be very serious about his quest of documenting all the marks and scars he can find, and stating their presumed origin. More often than not, he’s actually right, and that in and of itself is a little concerning.

He’s quiet, however, when his fingers brush over the edges of the burn mark on Stan’s shoulder blade. Maybe Stan is imagining it, but he believes Ford’s touch lingers for a moment, as if he’s debating whether to trace it like the other scars.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he finds a knot of scar tissue right below Stan’s right shoulder and pauses, his fingers pressed to it. His eyes scan Stan’s chest and belly, and Stan starts feeling more awkward by the second. He is just about to wonder whether Ford realizes that this is getting really weird real fast, when Ford’s other hand traces a path down to his abdomen, circling another spot of knotted tissue, half-hidden between dark, curly hair.

“ _Jesus_ , Ford”, Stan grunts, shifting a little bit uncomfortably. “Give a guy a warning, will ya?”

“Those are gunshot wounds”, Ford says, his eyes still fixed on the scar on Stan’s stomach. Close to vital organs, probably no professional medical treatment - Stan can practically see Ford’s thoughts racing, and he doesn’t want to hear it. 

He shifts again, demonstratively. “So I had a bit of a rough stretch. But you knew that already, right? No big mystery here.” With that, Stan puts his hands on Ford’s wrists, shoving them away. “You had your fun, Poindexter. Now how about you stop prodding me and let me have some sleep.”

Ford, as usual, has not actually been listening. “Fine - what about these, then?”, he proposes, and frees his hand from Stan’s grasp to put it right on Stan’s leg. Without any more preamble, his fingers wander to the side of Stan’s thigh, obviously searching for something, until his finger tips find a thin, barely visible ridge.

“Laceration”, Ford says immediately and with astonishing certainty. “It was a bike accident. Because you  _had_  to try that stunt with the stairs. We sat in the hospital all afternoon and you kept babbling about hoping that it’d leave a ‘badass scar’.”

Stan thinks he remembers this - sitting in the crowded hallway of the hospital and eating what was left of a bag of sticky Toffee Peanuts. Ford had been berating him, until he had toffee stuck in his teeth and was entirely busy tonguing at it while complaining how much he hated it.

A grin spreads over Stan’s face.

“Ah, yeah, that”, he concedes. “Shame it didn’t leave much of anything.”  

But apparently, Ford is not done with him yet. His fingers have reached Stan’s knee, his thumb running slow circles over the gnarled skin.

“Road burn”, he declares, and there is a small smile on his lips as he elaborates, “You tripped and fell spectacularly when we were running down the boardwalk. Remember how you always had to race me to the beach? Well, you scraped your entire knee open and I had to wash out the sand with sea water.”

Stan cannot recall this incident at all, but when Ford describes it, he does feel reminded of the sight of a bloody knee caked with dirt and the sharp pain of fiercely biting his own lip. Sometimes he wonders if his brain just makes these little bits and pieces of memories up on the spot, if they are just products of his imagination when he listens to Ford’s little anecdotes.

“Burned like hell”, Stan says with a laugh. “But hey, I didn’t even cry.”

Ford looks at him with raised eyebrows, and Stan quickly back-paddles.

“Or at least I didn’t for the most part, right?” He’s not certain at all actually, but he likes to pretend he is. “Hurt like crazy though.”

Ford’s brows knit ever so slightly, and Stan worries that it might be out of concern. Then Ford reaches up, almost hesitant, and touches Stan’s forehead, smoothing his left brow with his thumb in an unusually tender caress.

Stan stays completely still.

“Torn skin", Ford explains, and there’s a trace of fondness in his tone that seems at odds with his words. “You got in a fight, one against three. But you made it out mostly intact - except for a bleeding cut on your forehead and two missing teeth. You were lucky you still had your primary teeth at the time”, he adds, still slightly admonishing, even if it has been over 50 years.

Stan gives him a good-natured half-grin. “Heh, must’ve looked like an idiot.”

At first, it seems like Ford wants to object, but he can’t hide the smile tugging at his lips. “We both laughed at your lisp for weeks”, he admits readily. “But I knew that I would’ve ended up looking much worse if it hadn’t been for you.”

There’s something in Ford’s expression now when he looks right at him, and it’s actually, genuinely nice in a way that should be comforting, or reassuring at least, but it’s also not what Stan feels he can handle at all.

It’s really, really awkward, too.

Stan clears his throat. “Yeah, bet they thought twice about messing with y-”

Then Ford’s hand slides over his shoulder, the other to the back of his neck, and Ford kisses him, a bit too hard, too sudden, too uncoordinated, clanking their teeth together as Stan opens his mouth to kiss back.

“Stanley”, Ford says, and nothing else. And for a moment, this is good. Just Ford, holding on to him, his fingers digging into Stan’s back, into the insensitive skin of his burn mark. “Stanley”, Ford says again, breathes it into Stan’s mouth between kisses, and Stan readily swallows it.

For a moment, this is somehow almost comfortingly familiar.


End file.
